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Eleven Clever Ways to Get More Retweets Right Now

Do you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels on Twitter? Pumping out tweets but not much to show for it? Trust me, you are not alone!

Look, everyone and their grandmother is out there competing for attention on Twitter. So if you want to get noticed and shared, you’re going to have to put in some work.

The good news? This post is here to help!

Today you’ll learn some features of Twitter that make getting more retweets easier. Plus, we’ll go over some ways to craft better tweets and what kind of tweets you can send to increase your chances of getting retweets.

So let’s dive right in and check out 11 things you can start doing today to get more retweets.

1. Pin a Tweet

I made this the first section because if you take nothing else away from this post, please make sure you have a pinned tweet.

For those that don’t know, a pinned tweet is simply a post that stays locked at the top of your profile. If you’re active on Twitter, people are visiting your Twitter profile page. And when they do, they see your pinned tweet.

Take advantage! Do you have a lead magnet you want people to get? A free offer you want to promote? An awesome new blog post you want to drive traffic to? A big announcement about yourself or your business?

Those are exactly the kinds of things a pinned tweet is perfect for!

So how do you pin a tweet? It’s super easy. Choose the tweet you want to pin (it does have to be originally tweeted by you) and click the down arrow in the top right of the tweet. Then choose the “Pin this to my profile” option.

Confirm you want to pin it in the popup box and you’re done.

And a pinned tweet is really a game changer when you use the next tip…

2. Follow First

Employing a Twitter “follow-first” strategy is one of the quickest and most effective ways to grow your account and get more retweets.

After all, the more people who see your tweets, the more chances you have for retweets, right? Right.

And, as mentioned, having a great pinned tweet combined with a follow-first strategy is powerful. When you’re following the right accounts, they will get a notification you’ve followed them. Most will then come check out your profile page to see if they want to follow back.

And that’s where the magic happens. When you optimize your Twitter profile page, a visitor’s eyes will move from the header photo to the bio, then (assuming they’re still there) over to your tweets. And since you’re pinned an awesome tweet, that’s what they see first.

This is a killer way to get major engagement on exactly the tweet you want.

Check out the retweets on the pinned tweet for Social Quant’s account:

3. Ask for Retweets

Fortune favors the bold. And sometimes you have to ask for what you want. It’s amazing how much just adding “Pls RT” works. Most people are genuinely helpful and you might be surprised how effective asking for a retweet is.

That said, use this technique sparingly. If you ask for retweets on every single tweet it gets old (and ignored) quickly.

But, if you ask for an RT and it’s clear why you want it to be shared, it really works. For instance, try adding “Pls RT” to the end of tweets announcing something about your business or a poll you’ve created and I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

4. Retweet Others

It’s human nature to want to reciprocate when someone does something nice for you. And what could be nicer (on Twitter) than consistent retweets of your content?

So, if you make it a point to retweet others, you will get more retweets in return. You don’t want to have a broadcast-only mindset on Twitter.

Also, be strategic with how you go about retweeting. Don’t just go down your timeline and retweet any and everything.

First, think about who you would like to share your content. Aim for people who have an audience that your content appeals to and enough followers that you’ll get some great exposure if and when they do retweet you.

But also be realistic. Choose people who are actively retweeting others and are not too big. You can retweet celebrities until your finger falls off but you probably won’t see them reciprocate.

Once you know who you want to promote, put them in a Twitter list you can monitor on TweetDeck (or any other tool) so it’s easy to see and retweet their content.

By narrowing who you’re sharing with a select few, you’ll consistently show up in their notifications and, hopefully, start to form a relationship on Twitter. And who knows what kind of opportunities that will lead to!

5. Retweet Yourself

Did you know you can now retweet your own tweets? Well, you can…and I advise that you do, especially when you have a tweet that’s already getting good engagement on Twitter.

When you have a tweet that’s resonating with your audience (getting engagement) you can retweet it a few hours or days later to breath some new life into it. This works well because the tweet still has the previous engagement (retweets and likes) visible and that encourages more people to engage.

The first retweet is always the hardest to get. But once the ball gets rolling, people like to share what others have already confirmed is share-worthy.

6. Tweet Links with Shareable Elements

Tweets linking to your content are the most valuable to businesses on Twitter. After all, driving traffic back to your website is one of your most important goals on the platform, right?

Typically, tweets with links are basically just headlines. And while those can and do get retweeted, more often they get link clicks instead. Sometimes you get both – which is sweet – but I find my most clicked on tweets tend to have a relatively low number of retweets, and vice versa.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but try creating elements of a tweet that is worth retweeting on their own. You’ll get much more impressions and exposure on these, and still some traffic back to your site to boot.

For instance, the image in the tweet below stands alone (especially on Twitter where you can click it to expand and read).

There’s value in the image itself and people will retweet it just based on that. Think about what kinds of images you can produce to support your content that people will want to share.

Or, on the other hand, you can tweet the featured image of the post with the headline, but make the body of the tweet a shareable quote from the post.

7. Tweet Without Links

Tweets without links often get more retweets than tweets with links. These are great to get you exposure for your business (or your personal brand).

But, when you get retweets and favorites on any tweet, that has another, less obvious benefit.

Twitter’s new algorithm is looking at the engagement rate of your account as a whole to determine if you’re tweeting content people like. And based on that, they will display your tweets to more of your followers as your overall engagement rate goes up.

I’m sure you’ve noticed in your timeline that you sometimes see a tweet that another one of your followers has liked. Also, Twitter is showing you the “In case you missed it” tweets in your timeline quite a bit now as well.

By increasing the overall engagement on all your tweets, you increase the chances you’ll show up in those ways.

So, consider mixing up what you tweet with the next three tips.

8. Tweet Quotes

If you’ve been on Twitter for more than a hot second, you know quotes get a lot of engagement. After all, quotes became quotes for a reason. They resonate with people, often hitting an emotional chord. That’s what people love to share.

Trust me, there’s no shortage of quotes on the internet. Go out and spend some time compiling your favorites into a swipe file for when you want to mix things up with your tweets.

9. Get Personal

Sharing what’s going on with you or some behind the scenes content about your business is a great way to spark engagement. Much like a good quote, when you share something personal, people relate to you and want to engage.

Of course, the level you’re comfortable sharing will be different for everyone. And, obviously, use common sense. There are some things that aren’t appropriate to share from a Twitter account meant for business.

Make sure you tow the line between getting personal and sharing TMI on Twitter. I don’t want to call this person out with a screenshot or embedded tweet, but just a few days ago I saw an account that was bouncing between tweets about digital marketing and SEO to tweets extolling their love and patronage of a local strip club. That’s TOO personal and better off left untweeted.

10. Get Humorous with Tweets

Humor on social media can be tricky, especially on Twitter where the character limitations often leave a lot open to interpretation.

That said, a topical tweet that makes people laugh is sure to get retweeted like crazy. So, if you can be funny without being crude and damaging your brand’s reputation, go for it.

Comic relief is a great way to break up the monotony of tweeting for business and will keep your overall engagement rates high for the Twitter algorithm.

I recently stumbled upon the below image online. It’s funny and easy to relate to (for anyone who has participated in the horror that is the school science fair). That’s the kind of thing people are itching to share on social.

11. Tag Users

Anything that gets you into people’s notifications is infinitely more likely to be paid attention to and shared. Tagging other people in your tweets is no exception.

For instance, if you’re curating content (which I highly advise), there’s no reason not to tag the author of the post. It’s a great way to credit them. And, bonus, you’ll show up in their notifications. Of course, they’ll be appreciative and often will reciprocate down the line. They may even retweet that particular tweet (I know I do sometimes when people share my content and tag me).

But do you know you can also tag up to 10 people in the image of a tweet? When you add an image to a tweet, you’ll see an option underneath that says “Who’s in this photo?”

Just click on that and add up to 10 handles you want to tag.

Now, this is another one you don’t want to overdo. Once in a while, this is a super effective technique. But if you’re tagging users in every image you tweet, it will get old fast and just seem spammy.

Tag only users you’re sure will be interested in the tweet. The last thing you want is to show up in someone’s notifications and leave them scratching their head wondering why on earth you included them. You’ll quickly be crowned the spam king or queen.

The idea here is to include people you already have a relationship with and you know they’ll be interested in the tweet. Then, they will likely get the ball rolling for you by retweeting it to their audience.

Wrapping Up

As you can see, there are some really easy ways to use Twitter’s features to get more retweets, like a pinned tweet and having users. And by tweeting a variety of content you can increase your overall engagement rate, which boosts your entire account in Twitter’s new algorithm.

So, over to you. Have you used any of these techniques? Are there any you’re excited to try? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!

David Boutin

David Boutin is an expert on Twitter. David is the content manager and wearer of many digital marketing hats at Social Quant in Tampa, Florida. When not staring at a computer screen, you can find David at the local parks playing basketball or staring at a TV screen watching Georgia Bulldogs football.

About David Boutin

David Boutin is an expert on Twitter. David is the content manager and wearer of many digital marketing hats at Social Quant in Tampa, Florida. When not staring at a computer screen, you can find David at the local parks playing basketball or staring at a TV screen watching Georgia Bulldogs football.

Reader Interactions

Comments

This article is such a blast that I not just got the most followers in my city but also in my state but after that my followers were really getting bored so I started making great videos of myself and now I have again the most followers in my city but I wanted to go national and global and then I found ECIR pro. and now I have the most followers in my country and I am starting to go global.

Hey Lisa, thank you for reading and commenting! I agree the personal tweets do so much better but I think they also will help your promotional tweets with the new Twitter algorithm updates. That remains to be seen but I do think engagement on other tweets will help boost impressions of all tweets. Cheers! :)

David, thanks for this list of great ideas! I’m just learning about using twitter to grow my brand. I’m going to put these to work, and grow my audience! I’ll come back in a month with a report of how I did, ok? I have two twitter accounts but @ndchurchill only has 7 followers… I can only go up! ;-)

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Neal Schaffer is a leader in helping educate executives and professionals on social media as well as in implementing successful social media strategies for businesses. CEO of the social media agency PDCA Social, social media educator at Rutgers University and the Irish Management Institute, social media keynote speaker who has spoken at hundreds of events on four continents, and author of three social media books, Neal is a true innovator and influencer in the growing world of social media for business.